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Martin Luther King, Jr., left, walks with Bayard Rustin in this 1956 photo. Rustin was King’s mentor and was the architect of King’s 1963 March on Washington. Photo: Associated Press

(This article is part of an ongoing series for the month of June, which is national LGBT Pride Month. We will feature events, people or a person who gives us pride. Most of the articles will be about Long Beach or Los Angeles’ contributions, but not all of them. Nevertheless, all of them are worth knowing. This particular article also coincides with our Throwback Thursday series on LGBT History. This article was first published Feb. 6, 2014 – Out in the 562)

Rustin, who died in 1987 at the age of 75, practiced a life of nonviolent protest and was a mentor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Rustin, who lived as an openly gay black man when hiding in the closet was the norm, also was the architect of King’s 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

Martin Luther King, Jr., left, walks with Bayard Rustin in this 1956 photo. Rustin was King’s mentor and was the architect of King’s 1963 March on Washington. Photo: Associated Press

(This article is part of the Throwback Thursday series on LGBT history. Every week, we will feature an event or person significant to our community’s history. Most of the articles will be about Long Beach or Los Angeles’ contributions, but not all of them. Nevertheless, all of them are worth knowing. This article was first published Nov. 21, 2013. – Out in the 562)

Rustin, who died in 1987 at the age of 75, practiced a life of nonviolent protest and was a mentor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Rustin, who lived as an openly gay black man when hiding in the closet was the norm, also was the architect of King’s 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

This article is part of an ongoing series of stories on local and regional LGBT
history and pioneers.

Bayard Rustin, a leader of the civil rights movement, mentor to
Martin Luther King Jr. and chief organizer of the historic 1963 March on
Washington for Jobs and Freedom, struggled much of his life against
racism and homophobia.

Openly gay, he remained in the background
for the sake of the movement, only to be sacrificed by its leaders as a
political liability. Nevertheless, Rustin made crucial contributions to
the civil rights movement and emerged as a gay rights activist.

Here is a copy of a 2003 article I wrote on Rustin. It was tied to the 40th anniversary of the March on Washington.

By Phillip ZonkelStaff Writer

BAYARD RUSTIN had a dream.

As
a tireless and pioneering crusader for civil rights, social justice and
economic equality, his life rested on the bedrock conviction that
ordinary people could change the world.

Rustin also practiced
what he preached – He helped create the civil rights movement, mentored
Martin Luther King, Jr. on the practice of nonviolent protest and was
the architect of the historic 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and
Freedom, which took place 40 years ago today.

However, Rustin was
openly gay and deemed a political liability. Many advisers in the civil
rights movement told him to sit at the back of the bus.

“Rustin
hardly appears in all the voluminous literature produced about the
1960s,” says John D’Emilio, author of the book “Lost Prophet: The Life
and Times of Bayard Rustin.” “He’s a man without a home in history.”

Rustin
has been lost in the shadows of history at least in part because he was
a gay man in an era when the stigma attached to this was unrelieved.”

Adds
Angela Bowen, assistant professor of women’s studies at Cal State Long
Beach, “He was ostracized particularly by black leaders because they
were homophobic. They said he would bring disgrace on them because he
was gay.

“Bayard knew they were little minded, and he was ahead of his time,” she says.

Author Leyla Farah (“Black, Gifted and Gay”) writes a column on the Huffington Post lamenting the intentional omission of gay and lesbian black leaders from celebrations about Black History Month.

“Black, LGBT icons like Bayard Rustin, Audre Lorde, James Baldwin, and others are often either overlooked entirely or stripped of their sexuality when they’re included in the canon of mainstream African-American history.

“Similarly, when today’s leaders in the African-American community are acknowledged, the LGBT community is rarely represented.”

But Farah takes lemons and turns them into lemonade – listing 11 living gay and lesbian black legends. Or, if these names aren’t familiar to you, they should be. Get with the program.

Lee Daniels, Angela Davis, Alice Walker, Don Lemon and John Amaechi are saluted on her list.

Black, gay and proud.

(Activist Angela Davis attends Black Girls Rock! 2011 at the Paradise Theater in New York City on Oct. 15. Photo by John W. Ferguson/Getty Images)